
Don't like the check? Don't work for them
As contractors, they can decide not to work for Amazon if they are not ok with the terms of the deal; just like your typical plumber, mechanic, gardener...
Amazon is the latest company to be sued by workers who say they are unfairly being excluded from employee benefits. A class action complaint [PDF] by delivery drivers alleges that Amazon illegally classifies them as contracted workers rather than as employees. In the process, they accuse Amazon of violating minimum wage rules …
They're claiming that their conditions are such that they are not contractors, but are treated as employees.
For example, if you can't work for anyone else, turn down individual jobs, or send in someone else to do the work, you're probably an employee.
Piss off. Amazon make more than enough money to pay them and treat them like the employees they are.
No wonder the only people who can afford to work at these jobs come from other countries with a lower standard of living. Want to do business in our country? Pay a wage that people can live on. If your business plan can't handle that it's a shit business plan.
and the views such as our are exactly the "challenge" for Amazon and the likes. Fortunately, a glimmer of home to keep or raise the bottom margin for those hard-working enterprises: automated warehouses and automatic vans. I bet they prey to the God of Automation for the Day One...
Any time I'm presented with a contract that says anything about not working for a competitor or whatever I get it removed or don't sign - they have no right to tell me what to do.
Information gained at that contract is a different kettle of fish though - it would be very unprofessional and very dodgy to use information from a previous contract (that's specific to that company) with another firm - especially if they are competitors.
In fact, I was taken on once and was specifically asked about my previous contract company plans in a particular space - I told them that if I were to do that, what would stop me from doing the same to them later? They stopped asking me at that point.
A Moscow court has fined Airbnb, Twitch, UPS, and Pinterest for not storing Russian user data locally, according to Russian regulator Roskomnadzor.
The decision was handed down by the Tagansky District Court of Moscow after the four foreign companies allegedly did not provide documents confirming that the storage and processing of Russian personal data was conducted entirely in the country.
Twitch, Pinterest and Airbnb were fined approximately $38,500 while UPS received a fine of roughly $19,200.
A US congressional hearing on "combating tech bro culture" in the venture capital world is will take place this week, with some of the biggest names in startup funding under the spotlight.
The House Financial Services Committee's Task Force on Financial Technology is scheduled to meet on Thursday. FSC majority staff said in a memo [PDF] the hearing will focus on how VCs have failed to invest in, say, fintech companies founded by women and people of color.
We're told Sallie Krawcheck, CEO and cofounder of Ellevest; Marceau Michel, founder of Black Founders Matter; Abbey Wemimo, cofounder and co-CEO of Esusu; and Maryam Haque, executive director of Venture Forward have at least been invited to speak at the meeting.
If the proposed addition of the 12GHz spectrum to 5G goes forward, Starlink broadband terminals across America could be crippled, or so SpaceX has complained.
The Elon Musk biz made the claim [PDF] this week in a filing to the FCC, which is considering allowing Dish to operate a 5G service in the 12GHz band (12.2-12.7GHz). This frequency range is also used by Starlink and others to provide over-the-air satellite internet connectivity.
SpaceX said its own in-house study, conducted in Las Vegas, showed "harmful interference from terrestrial mobile service to SpaceX's Starlink terminals … more than 77 percent of the time, resulting in full outages 74 percent of the time." It also claimed the interference will extend to a minimum of 13 miles from base stations. In other words, if Dish gets to use these frequencies in the US, it'll render nearby Starlink terminals useless through wireless interference, it was claimed.
It's been a good week for free speech advocates as a judge ruled that copyright law cannot be used to circumvent First Amendment anonymity protections.
The decision from the US District Court for the Northern District of California overturns a previous ruling that compelled Twitter to unmask an anonymous user accused of violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which filed a joint amicus brief with the ACLU in support of Twitter's position, said the ruling confirms "that copyright holders issuing subpoenas under the DMCA must still meet the Constitution's test before identifying anonymous speakers."
Tesla is facing another lawsuit, and it's treading over old territory with this one. Fired Gigafactory workers are alleging that the electric car maker improperly terminated more than 500 people.
The proposed class action suit, filed on Sunday, stems from an email owner Elon Musk sent to Tesla leaders in early June – no, not the one where the billionaire said Tesla's workforce needed to be reduced by 10 percent.
According to the lawsuit [PDF], filed by two former employees at Musk's Nevada battery plant, Tesla moved far faster than it was legally allowed to when it fired employees at the gigafactory in the city of Sparks, NV.
The US could implement a law similar to the EU's universal charger mandate if a trio of Senate Democrats get their way.
In a letter [PDF] to Commerce secretary Gina Raimondo, two of Massachusetts' senators Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren, along with Bernie Sanders (I-VT), say a proliferation of charging standards has created a messy situation for consumers, as well as being an environmental risk.
"As specialized chargers become obsolete … or as consumers change the brand of phone or device that they use, their outdated chargers are usually just thrown away," the senators wrote. The three cite statistics from the European Commission, which reported in 2021 that discarded and unused chargers create more than 11,000 tons of e-waste annually.
The European Commission's competition enforcer is being handed another defeat, with the EU General Court nullifying a $1.04 billion (€997 million) antitrust fine against Qualcomm.
The decision to reverse the fine is directed at the body's competition team, headed by Danish politico Margrethe Vestager, which the General Court said made "a number of procedural irregularities [which] affected Qualcomm's rights of defense and invalidate the Commission's analysis" of Qualcomm's conduct.
At issue in the original case was a series of payments Qualcomm made to Apple between 2011 and 2016, which the competition enforcer had claimed were made in order to guarantee the iPhone maker exclusively used Qualcomm chips.
A draft US law that would, for one thing, subsidize the US semiconductor industry, has gained an amendment that would turn the screws on American investments in foreign countries.
The proposed update states that semiconductors, large-capacity batteries, pharmaceuticals, rare-earth elements biotech, AI, quantum computing, hypersonics, fintech and autonomous technologies are all included as sectors in which foreign investment would be limited, specifically in "countries of concern," or those considered foreign adversaries, like China. The amendment also would restrict construction investments and joint ventures that would involve sharing of IP and monetary rewards.
US entities that have invested in a sector or country covered under the amendment would be required to notify the federal government, and the proposal also includes authorization for the executive branch to form an interagency panel responsible for reviewing and blocking foreign investments on national security grounds, the Wall Street Journal said of the amendment.
Microsoft has announced changes to labour relations policy for its US workforce that touch on noncompete clauses, confidentiality agreements and pay transparency.
“Microsoft is announcing new changes and investments aimed at further deepening our employee relationships and enhancing our workplace culture,” wrote HR execs Amy Pannoni and Amy Coleman on the company blog.
The pair wrote that the changes reflect employee fedback.
A US class-action case claiming Oracle falsely inflated its cloud revenue by threatening customers with audits is set to continue after a federal judge approved the damages model proposed by the plaintiffs.
United States District Judge Beth Labson Freeman has certified an "out of pocket" approach to determining damages incurred by investors as a result of Oracle's alleged false statements about its cloud revenue. Oracle has consistently insisted the case – which dates back to 2018 – has no merit.
Oracle had argued that the City of Sunrise Firefighters' Pension Fund, which is bringing the case, had failed to meet the requirements to disclose its damages model.
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